The Economic Collapsehttps://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
Are You Prepared For The Coming Economic Collapse And The Next Great Depression?Thu, 21 Mar 2019 03:47:44 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.10The Chair Of The Federal Reserve Just Used The Term “Slowdown” To Describe What Is Happening To The U.S. Economyhttps://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-chair-of-the-federal-reserve-just-used-the-term-slowdown-to-describe-what-is-happening-to-the-u-s-economy
https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-chair-of-the-federal-reserve-just-used-the-term-slowdown-to-describe-what-is-happening-to-the-u-s-economy#respondThu, 21 Mar 2019 03:47:43 +0000http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/?p=15093Now even the Federal Reserve is publicly admitting that the U.S. economy is slowing down. And that is quite remarkable, because usually the Federal Reserve is extremely hesitant to say that an economic slowdown is taking place. As I pointed out the other day, in 2008 former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke kept insisting that a ... Read more

]]>Now even the Federal Reserve is publicly admitting that the U.S. economy is slowing down. And that is quite remarkable, because usually the Federal Reserve is extremely hesitant to say that an economic slowdown is taking place. As I pointed out the other day, in 2008 former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke kept insisting that a recession was not coming, but we found out later that a recession had already begun when he was making those statements. Normally the Federal Reserve tries very hard to paint a rosy picture of our economic future, and one of the big reasons for that is because they want us to believe that they are doing a good job and that they have everything under control. So it was quite stunning to hear Fed Chair Jerome Powell use the term “slowdown” to describe what is coming for the U.S. economy on Wednesday…

Citing a more modest outlook for the economy, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday held interest rates steady and signaled it did not plan to raise rates at all this year and would bump them up just once in 2020, providing a road map for a sustained period of easy-money policy.

“The U.S. economy is in a good place,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a news conference, adding policymakers foresee “a modest slowdown, with overall conditions remaining favorable. We see no need to rush to judgment (by lifting or cutting rates).”

Admittedly, he did only say that it would be a “modest slowdown”, and so to most people that won’t sound that bad.

But this is the very first time that Powell has talked like this, and the truth is that the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model is currently forecasting that U.S. growth in the first quarter will be less than half a percent. Fed officials are hoping that growth will be better in the second quarter, but there is also a very strong possibility that the economy will continue to decelerate.

Because the economy is entering a “slowdown”, the Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it does not anticipate any more interest rate hikes for the rest of the year.

Goldman Sachs led the 30-stock Dow to end the day down 141.71 points at 25,745.67. The S&P 500 closed 0.3 percent lower at 2,824.23. The Nasdaq Composite eked out a gain, closing 0.1 percent higher at 7,728.97.

This certainly could not have been the reaction that the Federal Reserve was hoping for.

Could it be possible that bad news for the U.S. economy is no longer good news for Wall Street?

Without a doubt, we are witnessing a huge wave of pessimism in the business community right now. Yesterday, I noted that Federal Express is talking as if a global recession had already started, and other corporate leaders are making similar statements.

For example, just consider what the CEO of banking giant UBS just said…

The head of UBS was among the latest to blame the world’s backdrop for weaker-than-expected results. CEO Ermotti told a conference in London on Wednesday that it “one of the worst first-quarter environments in recent history,” Reuters reported. The Swiss bank slashed another $300 million from 2019 costs after revenue at its investment bank plunged. Investment banking conditions are among the toughest seen in years, especially outside the U.S., he said.

And the CFO of BMW told investors on Wednesday that BMW’s earnings may be exposed to “additional risks” from the global economy in the months ahead…

“Depending on how conditions develop, our guidance may be subject to additional risks; in particular, the risk of a no-deal Brexit and ongoing developments in international trade policy,” CFO Nicolas Peter said in BMW’s quarterly earnings report Wednesday.

“We are expecting many difficulties this year such as slowing growth in major economies and risks over global trade conflicts,” Samsung Co-Chief Executive Kinam Kim said.

Here in the United States, whoever is in the White House at the time usually gets most of the credit or most of the blame for how the economy is performing.

But the truth is that President Trump did not create the financial bubble that caused the boom on Wall Street.

The Federal Reserve did.

And President Trump is not going to be responsible when that bubble bursts either.

The Federal Reserve has far, far more control over the performance of the U.S. economy than either the president or Congress does. And since the Federal Reserve was initially created in 1913, there have been 18 distinct recessions and/or depressions, and now we are heading into the 19th one.

If we want to finally get off this economic roller coaster ride permanently, we need to abolish the Federal Reserve. But this isn’t even part of the national political discussion at this point.

However, that could soon change. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, we witnessed a huge backlash against the Federal Reserve system. Eventually that backlash subsided, but now that we are entering a new crisis, perhaps it is time to start dusting off all of those old “End the Fed” signs.

]]>https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-chair-of-the-federal-reserve-just-used-the-term-slowdown-to-describe-what-is-happening-to-the-u-s-economy/feed0FedEx Is Talking As If A Global Recession Has Already Begun – And The Numbers Back That Uphttps://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/fedex-is-talking-as-if-a-global-recession-has-already-begun-and-the-numbers-back-that-up
https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/fedex-is-talking-as-if-a-global-recession-has-already-begun-and-the-numbers-back-that-up#respondWed, 20 Mar 2019 03:45:39 +0000http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/?p=15088“Slowing international macroeconomic conditions” is just a fancy way to say that the global economy is in big trouble. For months, I have been warning that economic conditions are deteriorating, and we just keep getting more confirmation that we are facing the worst global downturn since the last financial crisis. For the second time in ... Read more

]]>“Slowing international macroeconomic conditions” is just a fancy way to say that the global economy is in big trouble. For months, I have been warning that economic conditions are deteriorating, and we just keep getting more confirmation that we are facing the worst global downturn since the last financial crisis. For the second time in three months, FedEx has slashed its revenue forecast for this year. In an attempt to explain why revenue is declining, FedEx’s chief financial officer placed the blame squarely on the faltering global economy. The following comes from CNBC…

The multinational package delivery service reported declining international revenue as a result of unfavorable exchange rates and the negative effects of trade battles.

“Slowing international macroeconomic conditions and weaker global trade growth trends continue, as seen in the year-over-year decline in our FedEx Express international revenue,” Alan B. Graf, Jr., FedEx Corp. executive vice president and chief financial officer, said in statement.

The use of the word “trends” implies something that has been going on for an extended period of time, and obviously FedEx doesn’t expect things to get better any time soon if they have cut profit projections twice in just the last three months.

And FedEx certainly has a lot of company when it comes to having a gloomy outlook for the global economy. In one recent article, Bloomberg boldly declared that the global economy is in the worst shape it has been “since the financial crisis a decade ago”…

The global economy’s in its weakest shape since the financial crisis a decade ago, Bloomberg Economics analysis shows. And the reminders are all around: China got more affirming evidence of its big slowdown, with industrial output and retail sales softening and a jump in unemployment. The question now is how big that slowdown will be, and what China’s stimulus — and the U.S.-China negotiations — will do to put a floor under it. The Chinese premier pledged Friday that they wouldn’t use quantitative easing or massive deficit spending to ease the pain. Japan got more bad news on manufacturing sentiment and in the hard investment data. Germany, Europe’s growth driver, can’t hide from the daunting external risks. And Turkey just entered its first recession in a decade.

In recent weeks I have been sharing lots of numbers that back up the claim that global economic conditions are getting worse, and over the past few days we got a few more…

When we see numbers like those, normally everyone is screaming “recession” by now.

And retailers continue to shut down at a staggering pace here in 2019. Sadly, we just learned that Shopko is officially heading for bankruptcy and liquidation…

Shopko will liquidate its assets and close all of its remaining locations by mid-June.

The company was unable to find a buyer for the retail business and will begin winding down its operations beginning this week, the company said in statement released Monday. The decision to liquidate will bring an end to the brick-and-mortar business that began in 1962 with one location in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

There is a Shopko about 20 minutes from where I live, and it will definitely be missed.

Meanwhile, things just continue to get even harder for farmers in the middle part of the country. I wrote about the devastating impact that this historic flooding is having on Midwest farmers a few days ago, and now Fox Business is reporting that all of this flood damage is likely to make our rapidly growing farm bankruptcy crisis even worse…

The number of farms filing for bankruptcy already spiked, following low prices for corn, soybeans, milk and beef, according to analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. In the 12-month period ending in June, 84 farms filed for bankruptcy in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana — double the number over the same period in 2013 and 2014.

Now, some of these farmers have lost their livestock as a result of the devastating flooding. Some farmers, the Times reported, said they’ve been separated from their animals by walls of water, while others are unable to get into town for food and other supplies for the livestock.

We can see so many elements of “the perfect storm” starting to come together, and many believe that events are going to start greatly accelerating in the months ahead.

And as the global economy continues to deteriorate, we could quickly have a giant mess on our hands, because the global financial system is far more vulnerable today than it was in 2008. Just consider these numbers…

Global debt levels have become “higher and riskier” than that of a decade ago, meaning that “another credit downturn may be inevitable”, S&P Global Ratings has warned.

In a report entitled Next Debt Crisis: Will Liquidity Hold?, published on Tuesday (12 March), S&P found global debt has surged by around 50% since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, led by major-economy governments and Chinese non-financial corporates, while global debt-to-GDP ratios have risen to more than 231%, compared with 208% in June 2008.

Shipping companies often feel the effects of an economic slowdown earlier than just about anyone else. When a lot less stuff is being moved around by truck, rail and air, that should be a clear indication for the rest of us that economic activity is really starting to slow down significantly.

So the fact that FedEx has such a bleak outlook for our immediate economic future is a very ominous sign.

Tough times are ahead, and considering how tense things already are in our country, an economic downturn at this time could ultimately set off a very disturbing chain of events.

]]>https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/fedex-is-talking-as-if-a-global-recession-has-already-begun-and-the-numbers-back-that-up/feed0Weather Patterns Go Crazy: Nebraska Flooding Has Broken 17 Records And Farmers Are Being Absolutely Devastatedhttps://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/weather-patterns-go-crazy-nebraska-flooding-has-broken-17-records-and-farmers-are-being-absolutely-devastated
https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/weather-patterns-go-crazy-nebraska-flooding-has-broken-17-records-and-farmers-are-being-absolutely-devastated#respondMon, 18 Mar 2019 05:16:27 +0000http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/?p=15080One record breaking disaster after another has been hitting America in recent months. At this moment, Nebraska is dealing with the worst flooding that it has ever experienced, and the economic damage being done by all of this flooding is going to be absolutely crippling for many farmers. Of course the floods are the result ... Read more

]]>One record breaking disaster after another has been hitting America in recent months. At this moment, Nebraska is dealing with the worst flooding that it has ever experienced, and the economic damage being done by all of this flooding is going to be absolutely crippling for many farmers. Of course the floods are the result of the “bomb cyclone” that brought hurricane-like winds and blizzard conditions to the central part of the country last week. Sadly, this was just the latest chapter in a very cold and very bitter winter that can’t end soon enough as far as many of us are concerned.

Unfortunately, a change in the seasons is not going to be enough to restore our weather patterns to normal. Prior to this winter, I repeatedly warned that this was going to be an extraordinarily cold and snowy winter, and it turns out that I was exactly correct.

It is not an exaggeration to say that weather patterns here in the United States are literally going crazy. Los Angeles just had the coldest February that it has seen in 60 years, Seattle just had their snowiest February in 70 years, and some parts of California received more than 500 inches of snow this winter.

And now we are being warned that we could have a very rainy spring, but it is hard to imagine that things could get any worse than they currently are in the central part of the nation.

If you can believe it, some parts of the Missouri River are going to break previous flood records by up to 7 feet…

The Missouri River was still rising on Saturday evening, local TV station KMTV reported, with a record crest of more than 47 feet expected early on Tuesday in Brownville, Nebraska, about 70 miles south of Omaha in the eastern corner of the state.

So far, a total of 17 records have already been set, and according to CNN some of those records have been standing for nearly 60 years…

Some of the records go as far back as 1960 and some are as recent as 2011, according to a press release from the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency, or NEMA. The majority of the records NEMA listed involved the Missouri River, which crested between 30 and 47.5 feet in different areas throughout the state since Tuesday, breaking previous records by 1 to 4 feet.

The Platte River in Louisville is expected to crest Sunday at 14.3 feet, breaking its 1960 record by 1.9 feet, NEMA said. The Elkhorn River at Waterloo crested at 24.6 feet on Saturday, breaking its 1962 record by 5.5 feet.

Other states have been hit by flooding as well, but nobody got hit quite as hard as Nebraska.

Gov. Pete Ricketts and other state officials witnessed a helicopter rescue mission, saw wiped-out bridges, islands of stranded cattle and towns engulfed by water during a flyover of flooded areas Friday.

The expanse of the flooding made detecting the main channels of the Elkhorn and Platte rivers difficult in some areas, he said.

“This may be the most widespread flooding devastation we’ve had in our state in the last half-century,” Ricketts said.

While this extreme weather affects everyone in the area, farmers see some of the worst effects. Blizzard conditions and flooding can kill cattle and hogs, and the water-soaked fields may persist for weeks, preventing Midwestern farmers from being able to plant a timely spring crop. Planting delays can lead to lower crop yields or even force farmers to give up planting some fields, which could cut into U.S. corn production this year.

America’s farmers just can’t seem to catch a break. The trade war has small farmers all across the country on the verge of bankruptcy, and farm debt delinquencies have already reached the highest level that we have seen in 9 years.

So all of this flooding is coming at a really bad time, and on top of everything else more rain and snow is in the forecast for Monday and Tuesday.

Those that follow my work on a regular basis already know that I talk a lot about how our planet is becoming increasingly unstable. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are becoming more frequent, and global weather patterns are doing things that we haven’t seen before.

There is a very complicated relationship between the sun, the Earth’s magnetic field and our rapidly shifting weather patterns. If the behavior of the giant ball of fire that our planet revolves around continues to become even more erratic, that is going to have enormous implications for every man, woman and child in the entire world.

So keep a close eye on the sun. Most discussions about “climate” assume that our sun will behave the way that it always has, but that is not a safe assumption.

Things are changing, and the catastrophes that we have seen so far are just the beginning…

]]>https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/weather-patterns-go-crazy-nebraska-flooding-has-broken-17-records-and-farmers-are-being-absolutely-devastated/feed0Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mocks God: “What good are your thoughts & prayers when they don’t even keep the pews safe”https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-mocks-god-what-good-are-your-thoughts-prayers-when-they-dont-even-keep-the-pews-safe
https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-mocks-god-what-good-are-your-thoughts-prayers-when-they-dont-even-keep-the-pews-safe#respondSat, 16 Mar 2019 01:41:27 +0000http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/?p=1507549 people were just ruthlessly gunned down at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is using it as an opportunity to mock God. As you will see below, in response to the mass shootings she posed this question on Twitter: “What good are your thoughts & prayers when they ... Read more

]]>49 people were just ruthlessly gunned down at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is using it as an opportunity to mock God. As you will see below, in response to the mass shootings she posed this question on Twitter: “What good are your thoughts & prayers when they don’t even keep the pews safe?” Conservatives were obviously her intended target, but her statement implies that either God won’t listen to our prayers and stop these terror attacks or that He simply can’t do it because He lacks the power to do so. Either way, her statement is a direct attack on God and believers all across America are deeply, deeply offended by her statement.

What just happened in New Zealand is yet another example that demonstrates that the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing. Shooter Brenton Tarrant is a horribly deranged man who decided that he would gain worldwide fame by shooting a whole bunch of innocent people in cold blood. And it turns out that he wasn’t even from New Zealand…

A 28-year-old Australian man who was charged with murder was remanded without plea until his next appearance in court on April 5, while two others remain in police custody. NBC’s Australian subsidiary, Channel 7, say police sources have named one of the suspects as Brenton Tarrant.

The charged individual “traveled sporadically to New Zealand and stayed for varied amount of time,” but was not a resident of Christchurch, Ardern said in a statement.

In this day and age, this sort of thing can literally happen anywhere. No community is truly “safe”, and we all need to understand that our world has fundamentally changed.

When a great tragedy like this happens, it is not time to jump on social media and try to use it to score political points.

Unfortunately, that is precisely what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others on the left have been doing. Here is her full statement about “thoughts & prayers” in context…

At 1st I thought of saying, “Imagine being told your house of faith isn’t safe anymore.”

But I couldn’t say “imagine.”

Because of Charleston.
Pittsburgh.
Sutherland Springs.

What good are your thoughts & prayers when they don’t even keep the pews safe?

If she had simply mocked gun owners, conservatives or her political opponents, that would have been bad enough.

But she didn’t stop there.

She mocked almighty God by implying that our thoughts and prayers are worthless.

There is no room in Congress for someone that would make such a statement, and I am calling on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to immediately resign.

Others on the left are relentlessly pointing their fingers at conservatives in the aftermath of this attack, but Brenton Tarrant was not a conservative. In fact, he made this explicitly clear in the manifesto that he left behind…

The terrorist gunman who killed 49 Muslims at a mosque in New Zealand said in his own manifesto that he wanted “no part of” conservatism, describing himself as an “eco-fascist” and expressing admiration for Communist China.

Answering the question “Were/are you a conservative?”, Brenton Tarrant wrote, “No, conservatism is corporatism in disguise, “I want no part of it.”

But you aren’t hearing that on the mainstream news, are you?

In his manifesto, Tarrant also expressed disdain for Donald Trump, and he openly admitted that the “nation with the closest political and social values to my own is the People’s Republic of China.”

That would make him a far left communist more than anything else. But the mainstream media just keeps using terms such as “right wing extremist” to describe him.

At three points in his manifesto, the shooter also states his intention to spark a civil war in the United States by triggering crackdowns on the Second Amendment. In his laundry list of motivations, the shooter spends the most amount of time discussing this goal, which he believes will ultimately lead to a “fracturing” of the U.S. along “cultural and racial lines.”

As he describes it, his attack will “Create conflict between the two ideologies within the United States on the ownership of firearms in order to further the social, cultural, political, and racial divide within the United States.”

Without a doubt, our nation is more divided today than we have ever seen in modern American history, and the stage is set for the mass societal chaos that I depicted in “The Beginning Of The End”. I am stunned by all of the anger, frustration and hatred that I see throughout our society, and it is getting worse with each passing day.

If we don’t learn how to love one another, we simply are not going to make it as a society.

Loving others does not mean that you always have to agree with them. We must always contend for the truth, but at the same time we have got to find a way to love those that are opposed to us.

Hatred never leads anywhere good, and Tarrant is a perfect example of that fact. Sadly, our world is filled with more hate than ever before, and that is going to have very serious consequences for all of us.

]]>https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-mocks-god-what-good-are-your-thoughts-prayers-when-they-dont-even-keep-the-pews-safe/feed0World War 3 Coming? Israel Is On The Brink Of War With Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria And Iran All At The Same Timehttps://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/world-war-3-coming-israel-is-on-the-brink-of-war-with-hamas-hezbollah-syria-and-iran-all-at-the-same-time
https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/world-war-3-coming-israel-is-on-the-brink-of-war-with-hamas-hezbollah-syria-and-iran-all-at-the-same-time#respondFri, 15 Mar 2019 05:23:01 +0000http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/?p=15069On Thursday, rockets were fired at Tel Aviv for the first time since 2014, and Israel responded by hammering Hamas with airstrikes. This latest exchange has brought Israel closer to another war with Hamas than ever. But as you will see below, Israel is also on the brink of war with Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. ... Read more

]]>On Thursday, rockets were fired at Tel Aviv for the first time since 2014, and Israel responded by hammering Hamas with airstrikes. This latest exchange has brought Israel closer to another war with Hamas than ever. But as you will see below, Israel is also on the brink of war with Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. And on top of everything else, the most pivotal election in Israel in many years is on April 9th. If more rockets are fired at Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot afford to look weak because that could cost him a lot of votes in this very tight election. But he must walk a very fine line, because a military response that is seen as too harsh could potentially spark a major regional conflict.

Everyone knows that Israel is simply not going to tolerate rockets being fired at Tel Aviv, and so it was quite a shock to learn what had happened on Thursday. The following comes from the Jerusalem Post…

The Israeli military confirmed that two rockets were fired towards central Israel on Thursday evening, with at least two loud explosions heard in the Gush Dan region.

According to the IDF, although the Iron Dome missile defense system was activated, there were no interceptions as both rockets fell in open territory.

It was the first time sirens were activated in Tel Aviv since the last war with Gaza in 2014 and several Israelis were treated for shock.

It was inevitable that there would be a substantial response from the Israeli military, and airstrikes were conducted very rapidly. According to Fox News, a Hamas naval base was one of the primary targets…

The strikes were occurring in Khan Younis, roughly 15 miles south of Gaza City, according to The Associated Press. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

We can confirm that the rockets fired from #Gaza at #TelAviv earlier tonight were launched by the Hamas terrorist organization.

If Hamas doesn’t fire any more rockets, this will probably be the end of it for now.

But with Hamas, things are never truly over.

Meanwhile, Israel is also on the brink of war with Hezbollah in the north.

In recent days, Israel has been dealing with massive tunnels that Hezbollah has constructed for the purpose of rapidly moving military forces into northern Israel. So far, five tunnels have been discovered, but there are probably a lot more.

For the first time since 1973, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confronts the very real prospect of a sizable incursion. Years of fighting alongside Russian and Iranian forces in Syria have transformed Hezbollah into a formidable military force capable of launching such a raid, relying on coordinated infantry, artillery, and even armor and drones. This represents a major leap from Hezbollah’s small hit-and-run tactics in the 2006 Lebanon war.

The tunnels are integral to this new threat. Built in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 prohibiting Hezbollah’s rearmament in this area, they are reportedly wide enough to move heavy military equipment and large troop units.

Hezbollah’s leadership continues to threaten Israel with a new war, and it has been estimated that they have built up an arsenal of approximately 150,000 missiles for the next conflict.

Israel is roughly the same size as New Jersey. Just imagine what would happen if 150,000 missiles were suddenly fired at towns and cities all over New Jersey, and you will have some idea of what Israel is potentially facing.

Of course the Israeli military is far superior to Hezbollah’s forces, but if Israel has to fight Hamas and Hezbollah simultaneously that would be a real challenge.

And then there is Syria. After eight years of civil war, you would think that Syria would have had enough fighting by now.

Unfortunately, as I pointed out in a previous article, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad just threatened to attack Israel if the Israelis do not leave the Golan Heights. The following comes from the Jerusalem Post…

Syria vowed to attack Israel unless it withdraws from the Golan Heights, World Israel News reported on Thursday.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad submitted an official warning to the head of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) Kristin Lund, in what seemed to be an attempt to prevent official US recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan.

Can you imagine the stress that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be going through right now? A major election is less than a month away and he is literally fighting for his political life, and meanwhile several of Israel’s neighbors appear to be preparing for war with his nation.

Asked by a reporter in Tehran about Israeli threats to strike Iranian forces deployed in Syria, Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami was quoted by Iranian news outlets as saying, “Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map. And it seems that, considering the evil that Israel is doing, it is bringing itself closer to that.”

He added: “We announce that if Israel does anything to start a new war, it will obviously be the war that will end with its elimination, and the occupied territories will be returned. The Israelis will not have even a cemetery in Palestine to bury their own corpses.”

And Netanyahu also seems to anticipate that a conflict with Iran is coming. The following comes from NBC News…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu startled Iranians and even the White House on Wednesday with a strident call for Israeli-Arab action against the government in Tehran that was translated by his office as urging “war with Iran.”

Although Israeli officials tried to soften the reference by altering the English translation, the provocative comment was likely to further the perception that Israel, its Gulf Arab neighbors and the United States are interested in using military action to topple the government of Iran.

I have been warning that a major war is coming in the Middle East for a long time, and now we are closer than ever.

Let us hope for peace, but as we have seen in the past, any peace in the region is always just temporary.

Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are all fundamentally committed to the complete and total destruction of the state of Israel and nothing is going to change that. War is coming at some point, and it is going to be extremely bloody.

]]>https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/world-war-3-coming-israel-is-on-the-brink-of-war-with-hamas-hezbollah-syria-and-iran-all-at-the-same-time/feed0Planetary Collapse Threatens Our Survival: A New Study Says That More Than 1,200 Species “Will Almost Certainly Face Extinction”https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/planetary-collapse-threatens-our-survival-a-new-study-says-that-more-than-1200-species-will-almost-certainly-face-extinction
https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/planetary-collapse-threatens-our-survival-a-new-study-says-that-more-than-1200-species-will-almost-certainly-face-extinction#respondThu, 14 Mar 2019 03:30:18 +0000http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/?p=15063We are witnessing a worldwide environmental collapse, and nobody seems to know how to stop it. As you will see below, a study that was just released that looked at more than 5,000 species of birds, mammals and amphibians discovered that nearly a quarter of them “will almost certainly face extinction”. Never before has our ... Read more

]]>We are witnessing a worldwide environmental collapse, and nobody seems to know how to stop it. As you will see below, a study that was just released that looked at more than 5,000 species of birds, mammals and amphibians discovered that nearly a quarter of them “will almost certainly face extinction”. Never before has our society faced such a massive collapse of life on a planetary scale, and yet the vast majority of the population doesn’t seem concerned about what is happening. Species after species is being permanently wiped out, and most of us couldn’t care less.

The time for action is now. According to this new study, over 1,200 species will soon be extinct unless dramatic action is taken. The following comes from the Guardian…

More than 1,200 species globally face threats to their survival in more than 90% of their habitat and “will almost certainly face extinction” without conservation intervention, according to new research.

Scientists working with Australia’s University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society have mapped threats faced by 5,457 species of birds, mammals and amphibians to determine which parts of a species’ habitat range are most affected by known drivers of biodiversity loss.

Scientists are telling us that we have entered “the sixth major extinction” in the history of our planet. A brand new survey of 73 scientific reports that was just released has come to the conclusion that the total number of insects on the globe is falling by 2.5 percent per year. If we stay on this current pace, the survey warns that there might not be “any insects at all” by the year 2119. And since insects are absolutely critical to the worldwide food chain, that has extremely ominous implications for all of us.

In case you are wondering, humanity would not survive very long without insects.

In fact, it has been estimated that if all bees go extinct that most of humanity will be wiped out within ten years.

The global food chain is literally dying right in front of our eyes, and I cannot understand why more people are not deeply alarmed by this.

We are facing an unprecedented crisis in our oceans as well. Researchers in Canada have discovered that levels of phytoplankton have dropped by about 40 percent since 1950…

The tiny organisms, known as phytoplankton, also gobble up carbon dioxide to produce half the world’s oxygen output—equaling that of trees and plants on land.

But their numbers have dwindled since the dawn of the 20th century, with unknown consequences for ocean ecosystems and the planet’s carbon cycle.

Researchers at Canada’s Dalhousie University say the global population of phytoplankton has fallen about 40 percent since 1950.

Without phytoplankton, our oceans would quickly become giant “dead zones”, and at the pace we are going we don’t have too long before that will happen.

And the truth is that the frightening drop in phytoplankton levels is already having a dramatic impact on the food chain. I have shared the following quote from Chris Martenson before, but it is worth sharing again…

Fewer phytoplankton means less thiamine being produced. That means less thiamine is available to pass up the food chain. Next thing you know, there’s a 70% decline in seabird populations.

This is something I’ve noticed directly and commented on during my annual pilgrimages to the northern Maine coast over the past 30 years, where seagulls used to be extremely common and are now practically gone. Seagulls!

Next thing you know, some other major food chain will be wiped out and we’ll get oceans full of jellyfish instead of actual fish.

Are you starting to understand where I am coming from?

Our planet is literally dying, and there is only a very, very limited amount of time to do anything about it.

Meanwhile, western civilization is dying as well. Paul Joseph Watson has just produced a video entitled “The Collapse Of Western Civilization”, and it is perhaps the finest video that he has created to date. If you have not seen it yet, I would encourage you to check it out.

In an accompanying article, Watson listed some of the evidence that our society is in the process of collapsing…

From spiritual bankruptcy, to mass chemical dependence, to rampant addiction to sensual stimulation.

Almost every factor that precedes the collapse of great civilizations has been met by the west.

Our destruction is long overdue.

Depression is at its highest level ever. Drug addiction is at its highest level ever.

People identifying as Christians is at its lowest level ever.

As usual, Watson is right on the money. We have lost our values, we have no clear direction as a society, and we are deeply, deeply miserable. Just consider the following numbers from the CDC…

The number of deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide in 2017 hit the highest level since federal data collection started in 1999, according to an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data by two public health nonprofits.

The national rate for deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide rose from 43.9 to 46.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 2017, a 6 percent increase, the Trust for America’s Health and the Well Being Trust reported Tuesday.

Most people do not have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Without meaning and purpose, most people drift aimlessly through life, and that must change.

Time is running out for our exceedingly vacuous society. We are literally destroying ourselves and everything around us, and here in the western world we have completely lost our values. We are on a road to nowhere, and we will soon be overtaken by the consequences of our very foolish actions.

]]>https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/planetary-collapse-threatens-our-survival-a-new-study-says-that-more-than-1200-species-will-almost-certainly-face-extinction/feed0The College Admissions Scandal Is A Perfect Example Of How Deeply Corrupt America Has Becomehttps://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-college-admissions-scandal-is-a-perfect-example-of-how-deeply-corrupt-america-has-become
https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-college-admissions-scandal-is-a-perfect-example-of-how-deeply-corrupt-america-has-become#respondWed, 13 Mar 2019 05:26:17 +0000http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/?p=15057Is there anything left in this country that has not been deeply tainted by corruption? By now you have probably heard that dozens of people have been arrested for participating in a multi-million dollar college admissions scam. Enormous amounts of money were paid out in order to ensure that children from very wealthy families were ... Read more

]]>Is there anything left in this country that has not been deeply tainted by corruption? By now you have probably heard that dozens of people have been arrested for participating in a multi-million dollar college admissions scam. Enormous amounts of money were paid out in order to ensure that children from very wealthy families were able to get into top schools such as Yale University, Stanford University, the University of Texas and the University of Southern California. We should certainly be disgusted by these revelations, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Such corruption happens every single day on every single level of society in America. At this point our nation is so far gone that it is shocking when you run into someone that actually still has some integrity.

The “mastermind” behind this college admissions scam was a con man named William Rick Singer. He had been successfully getting the kids of wealthy people into top colleges for years using “side doors”, and he probably thought that he would never get caught.

But he did.

There were four basic methods that Singer used to get children from wealthy families into elite schools. The first two methods involved bribes…

Bribing college entrance exam administrators to allow a third party to facilitate cheating on college entrance exams, in some cases by posing as actual students,’ is the first.

Bribing university athletic coaches and administrators to designate applicants as purported athletic recruits – regardless of their athletic abilities, and in some cases, even though they did not play the sport,’ is the second.

Because many of these kids didn’t even play the sports they were being “recruited” for, in some cases Photoshop was used to paste their faces on to the bodies of real athletes…

In order to get non-athletic kids admitted to college as athletes, Singer often had to create fake profiles for them. Sometimes this involved fabricating resumes that listed them having played on elite club teams, but to finish the illusion Singer and his team would also use Photoshop to combine photos of the kids with actual athletes in the sport.

A number of college coaches became exceedingly wealthy from taking bribes to “recruit” kids that would never play once they got to school, but now a lot of those same coaches are probably going to prison.

‘Having a third party take classes in place of the actual students, with the understanding that the grades earned in those classes would be submitted as part of the students’ application,’ is the third.

The fourth was ‘submitting falsified applications for admission to universities … that, among other things, included the fraudulently obtained exam scores and class grades, and often listed fake awards and athletic activities.’

Of course the main thing that the media is focusing on is the fact that some celebrities are among those being charged in this case, and that includes Lori Loughlin from “Full House”…

It was important to “Full House” star Lori Loughlin that her kids have “the college experience” that she missed out on, she said back in 2016.

Despite how cynical I have become lately, I never would have guessed that Lori Loughlin was capable of such corruption.

After all, she seems like such a nice lady on television.

But apparently she was extremely determined to make sure that her daughters had “the college experience”, and so Loughlin and her husband shelled out half a million dollars in bribes…

Loughlin and Giannulli ‘agreed to pay bribes totaling $500,000 in exchange for having their two daughters designated as recruits to the USC crew team – despite the fact that they did not participate in crew – thereby facilitating their admission to USC,’ according to the documents.

As bad as this scandal is, can we really say that it is much worse than what is going on around the rest of the country every single day?

I know that it is not fashionable to talk about “morality” and “values” these days, but the truth is that history has shown us that any nation that is deeply corrupt is not likely to survive for very long.

Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Today, we are neither moral or religious.

What we are is deeply corrupt, and America will not survive if we keep going down this path.

]]>https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-college-admissions-scandal-is-a-perfect-example-of-how-deeply-corrupt-america-has-become/feed0New Numbers Confirm That The Global Economy And The U.S. Economy Are The Weakest They Have Been Since The Last Recessionhttps://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/new-numbers-confirm-that-the-global-economy-and-the-u-s-economy-are-the-weakest-they-have-been-since-the-last-recession
https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/new-numbers-confirm-that-the-global-economy-and-the-u-s-economy-are-the-weakest-they-have-been-since-the-last-recession#respondTue, 12 Mar 2019 04:37:56 +0000http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/?p=15052Even mainstream economists are admitting that economic activity is slowing down. And at this point that fact would be very difficult to deny, because the numbers are very clear. We haven’t faced anything like this in a decade, and many are deeply concerned about what is coming next. Will it be just another recession, or ... Read more

]]>Even mainstream economists are admitting that economic activity is slowing down. And at this point that fact would be very difficult to deny, because the numbers are very clear. We haven’t faced anything like this in a decade, and many are deeply concerned about what is coming next. Will it be just another recession, or will it be an even greater crisis than we faced in 2008? According to Bloomberg Economics, the global economy experienced a “sharp loss of speed” over the course of 2008 and global economic conditions are now “the weakest since the global financial crisis”…

The global economy’s sharp loss of speed through 2018 has left the pace of expansion the weakest since the global financial crisis a decade ago, according to Bloomberg Economics.

Its new GDP tracker puts world growth at 2.1 percent on a quarter-on-quarter annualized basis, down from about 4 percent in the middle of last year. While there’s a chance that the economy may find a foothold and arrest the slowdown, “the risk is that downward momentum will be self-sustaining,” say economists Dan Hanson and Tom Orlik.

This is definitely the worst condition that the global economy has been in since I started The Economic Collapse Blog, and I am personally very alarmed about where things are heading. The tremendous economic optimism of early 2018 has given way to a tremendous wave of pessimism, and the speed at which the economic environment is changing has stunned a lot of the experts.

In fact, Bloomberg economists Dan Hanson and Tom Orlik openly admit that they are “surprised” by how quickly the global economy has shifted…

“The cyclical upswing that took hold of the global economy in mid-2017 was never going to last. Even so, the extent of the slowdown since late last year has surprised many economists, including us.”

Of course the U.S. has not been immune from the changes. The U.S. economy is rapidly slowing down as well, and this is something that I have been heavily documenting on my website.

And now we have just received more confirmation that the economy is decelerating. The Atlanta Fed has just updated their GDPNow model yet again, and with this new revision they are now projecting that the U.S. economy will grow at a rate of just 0.2 percent during the first quarter of 2019…

Moments ago we got another confirmation of this, when following the latest retail sales report which saw a dramatic cut to December retail sales even as January surprised modestly to the upside, the Atlanta Fed slashed its Q1 GDP nowcast, and after rebounding modestly from 0.3% to 0.5% a week ago, it has once again slumped, and is now at the lowest recorded level, and just 0.2% away from economic contraction.

This is how the AtlantaFed justified its latest Q1 GDP cut, which as of March 11 was just 0.2 percent, down from 0.5 percent on March 8: “After this morning’s retail sales report from the U.S. Census Bureau, the nowcast of first-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth declined from 1.5 percent to 1.0 percent.”

In other words, we are just a razor thin margin away from entering an economic contraction.

Last week, we learned that U.S. job cut announcements were up 117 percent in February when compared to last year. All of the economic momentum is in a negative direction right now, and it is going to be exceedingly difficult to avert a recession at this point.

And of course a lot of analysts believe that what is coming will be a whole lot worse than just a recession. The greatest debt bubble in the entire history of our planet is in the process of bursting, and the consequences are going to be absolutely horrific. I really like how financial expert Egon von Greyerz recently made this point…

People must understand that the world has never faced risk of this magnitude. We are now in the final seconds of the global mega bubble, the likes of which the world has never seen before. What will happen next will be worse than the fall of the Roman Empire, much worse than the South Sea and Mississippi Bubbles, and will create a disaster that will dwarf the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The problem is simple to define and is all based around debts and liabilities. At the beginning of this century, global debt was $80 trillion. When the Great Financial Crisis started in 2006, global debt had gone up by 56% to $125 trillion. Today it is $250 trillion.

There is no way that a 250 trillion dollar bubble is going to burst in an orderly fashion. Essentially, we are looking at the sort of apocalyptic financial scenario that I have been warning about for a long time, and most people have no idea that it is coming.

And if people only listened to the financial authorities, it would be easy to get the impression that everything is going to be just fine.

For example, Fed Chair Jay Powell just told 60 Minutes that the outlook for the U.S. economy “is a favorable one”. The following comes from Fox Business…

Jay Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve, says he does not see a recession hitting the U.S. economy anytime soon.

“The outlook for our economy, in my view, is a favorable one,” Powell said Sunday in an interview with CBS’s Scott Pelley for “60 Minutes.”

If you are tempted to believe Powell, let me remind you of what former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke told Congress in early 2008…

“The U.S. economy remains extraordinarily resilient,” the U.S. central bank chief said in answering questions after testifying before the House of Representatives Budget Committee.

Bernanke added that growth will be worse this year. “We currently see the economy as continuing to grow, but growing at a relatively slow pace, particularly in the first half of this year,” he said.

Of course we all remember what happened next. The U.S. economy plunged into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and we are still dealing with the aftermath of that crisis to this day.

Nobody is going to ring a bell when the next recession starts. It is just going to happen, and just like last time, most Americans are going to be blindsided by it.

]]>https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/new-numbers-confirm-that-the-global-economy-and-the-u-s-economy-are-the-weakest-they-have-been-since-the-last-recession/feed0Millennials Are More Than A Trillion Dollars In Debt, And Most Of Them Don’t Even Own A Homehttps://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/millennials-are-more-than-a-trillion-dollars-in-debt-and-most-of-them-dont-even-own-a-home
https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/millennials-are-more-than-a-trillion-dollars-in-debt-and-most-of-them-dont-even-own-a-home#respondMon, 11 Mar 2019 23:11:02 +0000http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/?p=15045When compared to a similar point in time, Millennials are deeper in debt than any other generation that has come before them. And the biggest reason why they are in so much debt may surprise you. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first let’s talk about the giant mountain of debt that Millennials ... Read more

]]>When compared to a similar point in time, Millennials are deeper in debt than any other generation that has come before them. And the biggest reason why they are in so much debt may surprise you. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first let’s talk about the giant mountain of debt that Millennials have accumulated. According to the New York Fed, the total amount of debt that Millennials are carrying has risen by a whopping 22 percent in just the last five years…

This troubling amount of debt, an increase of over 22% in just five years, is more than any other generation in history. This situation may leave you wondering how millennials ended up in such a sorry state.

Many young adults are absolutely drowning in debt, but the composition of that debt is quite different when compared to previous generations at a similar point in time.

Mortgage debt and credit card debt levels are far lower for Millennials, but the level of student loan debt is far, far higher…

While the debt levels accumulated by millennials eclipse those of the previous generation, Generation X, at a similar point in time, the complexion of the debt is very different.

Over the last 10 years, the total amount of student loan debt in the United States has more than doubled.

It is an absolutely enormous financial problem, and there doesn’t seem to be an easy solution. Some politicians on the left are pledging to make college education “free” in the United States, but they never seem to explain who is going to pay for that.

But what everyone can agree on is that student loan debt levels are wildly out of control. The following statistics come from Forbes…

The latest student loan debt statistics for 2019 show how serious the student loan debt crisis has become for borrowers across all demographics and age groups. There are more than 44 million borrowers who collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student loan debt in the U.S. alone. Student loan debt is now the second highest consumer debt category – behind only mortgage debt – and higher than both credit cards and auto loans. Borrowers in the Class of 2017, on average, owe $28,650, according to the Institute for College Access and Success.

Our colleges and universities are not adequately preparing our young people for their future careers, but they are burdening them with gigantic financial obligations that will haunt many of them for decades to come.

Due to the fact that so many of them are swamped by student loan debt, the homeownership rate for Millennials is much, much lower than the homeownership rate for the generations that immediately preceded them. The following comes from CNBC…

The homeownership rate for those under 35 was just 36.5 percent in the last quarter of 2018, compared with 61 percent for those aged 35 to 44, and 70 percent for those aged 45 to 54, according to the U.S. Census. The millennial homeownership rate actually dropped in the fourth quarter compared with the third quarter, but was unchanged year over year.

This is one of the big reasons why “Housing Bubble 2” is beginning to burst. There are not enough Millennials buying homes, and it looks like things could be even worse for Generation Z.

If you are a young adult, I would encourage you to limit your exposure to student loan debt as much as possible, because the debt that you accumulate while in school can have very serious long-term implications that you may not even be considering right now.

]]>https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/millennials-are-more-than-a-trillion-dollars-in-debt-and-most-of-them-dont-even-own-a-home/feed0Damascus To Become A “Ruinous Heap”?: Syria Threatens To Attack The Golan Heights And Israel Prepares For Warhttps://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/damascus-to-become-a-ruinous-heap-syria-threatens-to-attack-the-golan-heights-and-israel-prepares-for-war
https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/damascus-to-become-a-ruinous-heap-syria-threatens-to-attack-the-golan-heights-and-israel-prepares-for-war#respondMon, 11 Mar 2019 04:30:42 +0000http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/?p=15040The winds of war are blowing once again, and it isn’t going to take much to spark a major conflict in the Middle East. This week is the eighth anniversary of the beginning of the civil war in Syria, and after the nightmare that the people of Syria have been through, you would think that ... Read more

]]>The winds of war are blowing once again, and it isn’t going to take much to spark a major conflict in the Middle East. This week is the eighth anniversary of the beginning of the civil war in Syria, and after the nightmare that the people of Syria have been through, you would think that the Assad regime would be eager for peace. But instead, Assad appears to be ready to go for broke. If Syria can spark a Middle East war that results in the complete destruction of Israel, Assad would be remembered as a hero in the Islamic world forever. Instead of a legacy of civil war and crushing poverty, Assad’s legacy would be one of wartime leader that brought total victory over Syria’s most hated enemy. But of course such a conflict would be a huge risk, because if it went badly the city of Damascus would be completely flattened and the nation of Syria as we know it today would be entirely destroyed. And considering how overwhelmingly powerful the Israeli military is, it would seem to be a very foolish risk to take. Unfortunately, Assad does not appear to be thinking rationally. On Thursday, Syria officially threatened “to attack Israel unless it withdraws from the Golan Heights”. The following comes from the Jerusalem Post…

Syria vowed to attack Israel unless it withdraws from the Golan Heights, World Israel News reported on Thursday.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad submitted an official warning to the head of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) Kristin Lund, in what seemed to be an attempt to prevent official US recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan.

Of course Israel is never going to leave the Golan Heights. We all know how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu feels, and on Monday his main opposition in the upcoming election expressed similar sentiments…

Blue and White party politicians Gabi Ashkenazi, Yair Lapid, Benny Gantz and Moshe Ya’alon visited the Golan Heights on Monday and vowed never to give it up.

“We will increase the numbers of residents in the Golan, sending a resounding message to all – we will never relinquish the Golan Heights,” Gantz said.

Let us hope that Syria is bluffing, because if Syria attacks the Golan Heights it will start a war.

And it is a war that Syria could not possibly hope to win on their own. But Assad doesn’t plan to take on Israel by himself.

Over the last several months, Israel has repeatedly attacked Iranian forces inside Syria. The Iranians have been fighting on Assad’s side in the Syrian civil war, and the Israelis are afraid that when everything is all said and done that the nation of Syria will end up being totally dominated by Iran. The following comes from Haaretz…

For Iran, its domination of Syria is key to achieving its long-standing dream of a “Shiite crescent,” extending through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, to the Mediterranean and of establishing a permanent ground, air and naval presence on Israel’s border. Iran’s ability to do so has been impeded to date only by the small and dwindling U.S. force in eastern Syria and hundreds of Israeli airstrikes that have, so far, successfully thwarted Iran’s efforts.

Although Israel has become a powerful and essentially secure state, capable of demonstrating restraint in the face of the many challenges it faces, this would constitute a dire and unacceptable change in the balance of power, one that Israel cannot tolerate and must prevent – even at the expense of war.

The Iranians have stated that they are no longer going to tolerate Israeli airstrikes, and their military leadership is fully ready to go to war. If war does erupt between Israel and Syria, it seems very unlikely that Iran would stay out of it.

And without a doubt, Iranian targets would be among the first to get hit in a war between Israel and Syria, and the Netanyahu administration has been very clear that Israel is preparing for a war with Iran…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu startled Iranians and even the White House on Wednesday with a strident call for Israeli-Arab action against the government in Tehran that was translated by his office as urging “war with Iran.”

Although Israeli officials tried to soften the reference by altering the English translation, the provocative comment was likely to further the perception that Israel, its Gulf Arab neighbors and the United States are interested in using military action to topple the government of Iran. It comes at a particularly delicate moment, as the Trump administration uses a U.S.-organized summit in Warsaw and this week’s 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution to try to rally the world against the government in Tehran.

Such a war would be incredibly bloody, and the moment that missiles began to fall on Tel Aviv the Israelis would not hesitate to use nukes on Damascus and Tehran.

Let us hope that cooler heads prevail.

Meanwhile, the situation in Venezuela continues to unravel as well. Sunday was the fourth day for the nationwide blackout, and Nicolas Maduro is blaming the failure of the power grid on a U.S. cyberattack…

Socialist President Nicolas Maduro – who is facing a challenge to his rule by the leader of the opposition-led congress, Juan Guaido – has blamed the blackout on an act of “sabotage” by the United States at the Guri hydroelectric dam, but experts say it is the outcome of years of underinvestment.

“The national electrical system has been subject to multiple cyberattacks,” Maduro wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “However, we are making huge efforts to restore stable and definitive supply in the coming hours.”

Hopefully the U.S. was not behind the cyberattack, because a cyberattack is an act of war.

And since nobody has asked the U.S. Congress for permission to go to war, such an attack would be in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Unfortunately, our military is not in very good shape right now. In fact, in RAND’s recent “simulated World War III scenarios” the U.S. just kept on losing…

In simulated World War III scenarios, the U.S. continues to lose against Russia and China, two top war planners warned last week. “In our games, when we fight Russia and China, blue gets its ass handed to it” RAND analyst David Ochmanek said Thursday.

RAND’s wargames show how US Armed Forces – colored blue on wargame maps – experience the most substantial losses in one scenario after another and still can’t thwart Russia or China – which predictably is red – from accomplishing their objectives: annihilating Western forces.

“We lose a lot of people. We lose a lot of equipment. We usually fail to achieve our objective of preventing aggression by the adversary,” he warned.

Over the past decade, the U.S. military has been dramatically transformed, and not for the better.

But even if our military was in the condition that it should be, we should still not desire war, because in this day and age weapons of mass destruction have made full-blown war between major powers absolutely unthinkable.